


Read to Me

by Kedreeva Originals (Kedreeva)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Books, Bookstores, Gen, Grim Reapers, Horror, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Reapers, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 21:23:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13644717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/pseuds/Kedreeva%20Originals
Summary: A chance encounter becomes an unlikely friendship.





	Read to Me

            It lifted its head, gaze shifting away from the pages of  _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_  to glance down the center aisle of the bookstore. Its foxlike ears perked as the noise repeated- a turning page. Carefully, it closed its book, laying it upon the service counter as it unfolded from its perch upon the stool.

            Someone had entered its domain without its notice.

            Soundlessly, it moved from behind the counter and paced down the long, curved aisle of the store. At the end, sequestered into a corner at the back of the store, he found the source of the noise. It was a human girl, maybe five or six years old, with an anthology of horror stories splayed open in her lap.

            She glanced up when it arrived, bright-blue eyes tracking over the human illusion it used as a disguise. In her eyes, it could see the reflection of its own true form: a rotting, predatory creature. No heart beat in her chest.

            “You are not living.” The words came slowly, ancient and wrapped in the trappings of its real voice.

            She brushed a lock of curled, golden hair behind her small ear, and shrugged one shoulder carelessly. “Neither are you. I saw you from the street, you know. I’ve seen your kind before.”

            “My kind?” it asked, tipping its jackal-like head.

            “Reapers,” she clarified, closing the book in her lap with a solid  _whump_. “Death follows you folks like snakes to the piper. Makes it easy for me.”

            It looked her over with pale, red eyes, but there was nothing inhuman about her that it could see. She was small, with chubby, childish fingers and dimples in her cheeks when she flashed a smile at it. Yet, it could smell death upon her like a cloak, and the room was devoid of their heartbeats.

            “What are you?” it asked slowly.

            With grace that did not belong to a human child, she turned and raised herself onto her knees in order to reshelve her book. Then she clambered to her feet, and began to stretch her limbs as if they had gotten tight from sitting. “The humans call my kind  _zombie_ ,” she said nonchalantly. “Their dead don’t come back, though. I only reanimate the flesh, I can’t bring back the soul.”

            It knew of these creatures. They followed its kind like carrion birds, stealing the bodies after its kind had stolen the souls to consume. They were pests, vermin. It had never actually seen one up close. It moved nearer, but the creature did not move away.

            “You do not fear death," it said slowly.

            “My life isn’t one you can take,” she said. “And I can’t commandeer the bodies of immortals like yourself.”

            “Then you are of no use, and no threat,” it concluded. “You should leave.”

            As it moved to return to the front desk, it felt the chill touch of a hand on its cracked, bony back. Its head swiveled around to look down at the smiling child, and a foreign feeling swept through its blood. It was much the same feeling, it suspected, that humans got when it approached them at the end.

            “I can help you, you know,” she said. “You gotta eat something. More than you are now. I can find you food.”

            It turned back to its path and began to shuffle away again. “Leave here.”

            “Hey, come on now.” She darted into the next aisle and beat it to the end of the row, popping out in front of it to stand in its way. “You’re starving, and these bodies… they dust out so fast. A week, maybe two, and they start to rot. I can’t tear the souls out like you can, and if I get stuck in one of-” Her words caught, and she shook her head, looking away from it. “I don’t got a soul, Reaper. I stay too long in one body, and I’m just gone.”

            It contemplated this for a moment, looking over the rigid way she held herself. It could feel the barest hint of energy beneath the surface of the skin, the force which reanimated the flesh and spoke to it. “You are scared.”

            “I’m  _terrified_ ,” she breathed out in a rush. “And I’ve never seen a reaper on its own before. I thought maybe… maybe we could help each other out.”

            “You cannot help me,” it said, moving past her. This time, she let it. “I chose this path.”

            “You don’t wanna eat humans,” she called after it, giving it pause. “I get it, you know? I been around humans a lot. They’re… yeah. But, Reaper, I can bring you the dying. They’re dying all the time anyway.”

            “Astaforis,” it said slowly, resuming the walk to the front. This time, she followed.

            “Excuse me?”

            “Astaforis,” it repeated. “It is my name. You may stop calling me reaper.”

            “Astaforis…” she echoed. “I’m Hestet. Does that… does that mean I can stay?”

            It perched back on the stool behind the counter, and laid a clawed hand upon the book it had been reading. A long time had passed since it had had company that wasn’t over for dinner. It spent a lot of time in chill, silent solitude.

            “Hestet,” it hissed. “Yes, you may herd the dying to me, and take which bodies you please… on one condition.”

            “Anything,” Hestet replied instantly.

            Astaforis lifted its book, and held the precious object out to Hestet. “Read to me.”


End file.
